No crinkling now. More like a Halloween pumpkin, with the candle gone out.
And then she tells me what’s what. “I tried for a long time, Charlie. To make you happy. I thought if I made more money it would make you happy. Or if we got a bigger house. Or if I just left you alone so you could drink all the time. But none of these things made you happy, Charlie. And they didn’t make me happy, either. Now that you’ve moved out, I’m sad. I am crying every night. But, as I now know the truth, I can begin to deal with it.”
“This isn’t the only truth there is,” I say. It sounds more vague than I want it to, so I spread my arms wide—like I’m hugging the whole world—but this only ends up seeming even vaguer.
I try again. “I don’t want to be the person I’ve been,” I say. “I want to change.” This is meant sincerely. But, like most sincerities, it’s a little threadbare. Also, because I’m out of practice being sincere, I still feel like I’m lying.
Not very convincing.
“It’s late,” Johanna says. “I’m tired. I’m going home.”
“Our home,” I say. But she’s halfway to her car already.
*
I don’t know where I’m walking. Just wandering. I don’t much want to go back to my apartment.
After me and Johanna bought our house, we went over to meet the owners, and you know what the old guy did to me? We were walking out to see the mechanical room—he wanted to explain about servicing the boiler—and he was walking real slow. Then right quick he turned around and looked at me with his old bald head, and he said, “Just you wait.”
His spine was all catty-whompered. He could only shuffle along. So, in order to stave off the embarrassment of being closer to death than me, he hit me with that grim reminder that I’d end up just like him someday, shuffling around this house like an invalid.
Thinking of Mr. De Rougement, I all of a sudden figure out what my problem is. Why I’ve been acting so crazy.
It’s death. He’s the bad guy.
Hey, Johanna. I found him! It’s death.
I keep on walking, thinking about that. Lose track of time.
When I finally look up, I’ll be god-darned if I ain’t in front of my house again! On the other side of the street, in legal territory, but still. My feet led me here out of habit, like an old plug horse.
I take out my phone again. Maybe Meg played a word while I was in jail.
No such luck.
When a new word comes on Words with Friends, it’s a beautiful sight to see. The letters appear out of nowhere, like a sprinkle of stardust. I could be anywhere, doing anything, but when Meg’s next word flies through the night to skip and dance across my phone, I’ll know she’s thinking of me, even if she’s trying to beat me.
When Johanna and I first went to bed, I was a little intimidated. I’m not a small man, but on top of Johanna? Sort of a Gulliver’s Travels–type situation. It was like Johanna had fallen asleep and I’d climbed up there to survey the scene. Beautiful view! Rolling hills! Fertile cropland! But there was only one of me, not a whole town of Lilliputians throwing ropes and nailing her down.
But it was strange. That first night with Johanna, and more and more every night after, it was like she shrank in bed, or I grew, until we were the same size. And little by little that equalizing carried on into the daylight. We still turned heads. But it seemed as though people were just looking at us, a single creature, not two misfits yoked at the waist. Us. Together. Back then, we weren’t fleeing or chasing each other. We were just seeking, and every time one of us went looking, there the other was, waiting to be found.
We found each other for so long before we lost each other. Here I am! we’d say, in our heart of hearts. Come find me. Easy as putting a blush on a rainbow.
2013
THE ORACULAR VULVA
Skulls make better pillows than you’d think. Dr. Peter Luce (the famous sexologist) rests his cheek on the varnished parietal of a Dawat ancestor, he’s not sure whose. The skull tips back and forth, jawbone to chin, as Luce himself is gently rocked by the boy on the next skull over, rubbing his feet against Luce’s back. The pandanus mat feels scratchy against his bare legs.
It’s the middle of the night, the time when, for some reason, all the yammering jungle creatures shut up for a minute. Luce’s specialty isn’t zoology. He’s paid scant attention to the local fauna since coming here. He hasn’t told anybody on the team, but he’s phobic about snakes and so hasn’t wandered too far from the village. When the others go off to hunt boar or chop sago, Luce stays in to brood on his situation. (Specifically, his ruined career, but there are other complaints.) Only one brave, drunken night, going to pee, did he venture away from the longhouses to stand in the dense vegetation for roughly thirty-five seconds before getting creeped out and hurrying back. He doesn’t know what goes on in the jungle and he doesn’t care. All he knows is that every night at sundown the monkeys and birds start screaming and then, about 1 p.m. New York time—to which his luminous wristwatch is still faithfully set—they stop. It gets perfectly quiet. So quiet that Luce wakes up. Or sort of wakes up. His eyes are open now, at least he thinks they are. Not that it makes any difference. This is the jungle during the new moon. The darkness is total. Luce holds his hands in front of his face, palm to nose, unable to see it. He shifts his cheek on the skull, causing the boy to stop rubbing momentarily and let out a soft, submissive cry.
Wetly, like a vapor—he’s definitely awake now—the jungle invades his nostrils. He’s never smelled anything like it before. It’s like mud and feces mixed with armpit and worm, though that doesn’t quite cover it. There’s also the scent of wild pig, the cheesy whiff of six-foot orchids, and the corpse breath of carnivorous flytraps. All around the village, from the swampy ground up to the tops of trees, animals are eating each other and digesting with open, burping mouths.